TidBITS Issue #916

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More MacBook, MacBook Pro Keyboard Problems Fixed

If your MacBook or MacBook Pro has been dropping the first key press after having been idle, rejoice, because Apple has a fix for you. Alas, if you're experiencing this problem on any other Mac, you're still out of luck.Show full article

iPod & iPhone | 19 Feb 2008 | Listen

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Apple Drops iPod shuffle Price, Introduces 2 GB Model

The 1 GB iPod shuffle just dropped $30, and Apple will be releasing a 2 GB model later this month. What's to quibble about? Is the iPod shuffle really "impossibly small?" Nah...Show full article

Networking | 21 Feb 2008 | Listen

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Airfoil Adds Apple TV Support, Updated for Windows

Airfoil for Mac OS X and Windows now has full support for streaming to the new Apple TV release. Airfoil Speakers now works under Windows, too.Show full article

Rogue Amoeba has updated Airfoil, their networked audio streaming software, to add support for pushing music to the updated release of Apple TV, and to add remote speaker support under Windows. The company released both Airfoil 3.1 for Mac OS X and Airfoil 2.5 for Windows (2000, XP, and Vista). (The Windows release is numbered lower because it lacks Airfoil Video Player and doesn't support the Griffin RadioShark.)

Airfoil 3's notable addition was Airfoil Speakers, software that you can install on any computer on the network, and that lets you take control of that computer's audio output remotely from a computer running Airfoil. Airfoil 3.1 for Mac OS X and 2.5 for Windows extends Airfoil Speakers to computers running Windows, and allows Windows machines with Airfoil to control remote speakers either on Mac OS X or Windows systems.

Airfoil also supports streaming to AirPort Express base stations using Apple's AirTunes protocol; the AirPort Express has a dual analog/digital optical audio output port. For more on Airfoil 3, see "Airfoil 3 Spreads Music Streaming Beyond AirPort Express," 2008-01-10.

Rogue Amoeba software engineer Guy English explains in a blog entry that they managed to put a little fit and finish on the Apple TV streaming by pushing an image of your particular computer to the device, complete with your desktop background and a screen capture of the application from which you're streaming audio.

Airfoil 3.1 for Mac OS X also fixes a problem with DVD Player synchronized audio introduced with the release of Mac OS X 10.5.2, and improves performance on less-speedy computers.

All these changes to Airfoil have us wondering - will Rogue Amoeba create a version of Airfoil that could send music from an iPhone (or iPod touch) in your pocket to your AirPort Express? The iPhone could then be both the source of your music and the remote control, and incoming calls could cause the music to pause automatically. All we know is that Rogue Amoeba is pondering the possibility.

Inside TidBITS | 25 Feb 2008 | Listen

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Take Control News: Learn to Wrangle Permissions in Leopard

Permissions are among the most complex and confusing aspects of Unix that Macintosh users are forced to deal with, but thanks to Brian Tanaka's clear explanations in "Take Control of Permissions in Leopard," working with permissions no longer has to feel like a game of "Mother, May I?".Show full article

Networking | 19 Feb 2008 | Listen

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Apple Releases Xsan 2, Discontinues Xserve RAID

Apple has announced Xsan 2, with snazzy new features for enterprise storage folks. But at the same time, the Xserve RAID was quietly discontinued, and Apple is now pointing customers at a third-party RAID. What's up with that?Show full article

Apple has released an update to Xsan, the company's shared SAN (storage area network) file system that enables enterprises to group together storage attached to individual servers as part of a single collective storage pool. Xsan 2 offers easier setup and deployment, enables users on a single workstation to access multiple Xsan volumes at the same time, supports Spotlight searching, and is now qualified to work with third-party RAID storage. (Xsan's previous version did support third-party RAID storage, but Apple didn't emphasize that fact). The software is available immediately.

Xsan is actually an Apple-branded version of Quantum's StorNext File System software, ported to work on Mac OS X, and sold at a significantly lower price. Xsan costs $999 for each Mac attached to the shared file system; Quantum's versions are priced from $1,750 to $3,000 for Windows, Linux, and Unix versions. As far as I can tell, as with Mac OS X Server, Apple offers no upgrade discounts.

The fact that Xsan 2 works with third-party RAID storage is particularly important because Apple has thrown in the towel on the Xserve RAID, quietly removing it from their Web site and directing potential customers to the Promise VTrak E-Class RAID Subsystem. The Xserve RAID was increasingly long in the tooth, relying as it did on Ultra ATA drives instead of modern SATA and SAS drives, and suffering from controllers that weren't active/active failover controllers (meaning that if one controller failed, you lost access to that side of the RAID, and replacing it required bringing the entire RAID down). In comparison, the Promise VTrak E-Class RAID features fully hot-swappable SATA or SAS drives, dual hot-swappable RAID controllers (each one of which can run the entire RAID), support for more RAID levels than the Xserve RAID, and a 4Gb Fibre Channel interface instead of the Xserve RAID's 2Gb interface.

On the MacEnterprise list, comments about the specs on the Promise RAID were almost entirely positive, although one poster had less-than-stellar experiences with other RAID models from Promise.

The fading away of the Xserve RAID may indicate that the product had outlived its utility. According to Andrew Laurence of the University of California at Irvine, "Xserve RAID created a new category when it came out: robust storage using extremely cheap (ATA) disks. As time wore on many other vendors descended into that space, using ATA and then SATA disks."

IT analyst John Welch concurred, noting that there aren't significant margins to be made in the low end of the cutthroat RAID business, and although Apple could have re-engineered the Xserve RAID, "they couldn't bring enough to the table to make it worth the effort." He went on, "The idea of an Xsan/Final Cut Studio hardware certification program also gets much easier to swallow, since RAID hardware manufacturers are no longer competitors, but partners. I can't find much of anything bad about this decision."

While agreeing that the Xserve RAID desperately needed an update, Chuck Goolsbee of Web hosting company digital.forest defended the product, noting that they had never seen any component of an Xserve RAID other than a disk fail, despite having more than 100 terabytes of Xserve RAID storage online. He said, "It is a shame that the Xserve RAID is another Apple product cul-de-sac. They literally changed the game but never exploited the advantage."

None of this indicates, though, that Apple is backing down from the enterprise market entirely, especially given the recent update to the Xserve itself (see "New Xserve Goes Eight-Core Too," 2008-01-08). Instead, Apple is focusing its efforts on areas that can leverage advances from other divisions within the company, such as Macintosh hardware design.

As Andrew Laurence said, "For Apple, I imagine the Xserve RAID calculation came to 'We no longer need to be here.'"

Entertainment | 19 Feb 2008 | Listen

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Blu-ray Wins High-Definition Disc Format Battle

The format war over high-definition video stored on discs is over: Sony and its Blu-ray spec stands triumphant over Toshiba's HD-DVD. The real winners? You, as you don't have to decide among competing formats for home, computer, or disc purchases.Show full article

After less than two years of head-to-head competition in the marketplace, HD DVD developer Toshiba has resigned the side, choosing to drop further development of their format. The Sony-backed Blu-ray high-definition (HD) disc specification has won. This must be an especially sweet victory for Sony, which lost decades ago in the VHS versus Betamax battle, despite some superior technical characteristics of Betamax.

The two HD formats both provided a digital-rights-managed (DRM) approach for playing movies and other video from a high capacity disc to an HD television set at substantially higher resolutions than was possible from an ordinary DVD. Both formats support resolutions up to 1080p, which is 1920 by 1080 pixels, and most movies released are in this format. (Not all HDTV sets display 1080p; some display 1080i, in which lines of pixels are painted in alternating passes; and many show 720p, typically 1280 by 720 pixels.)

Both Blu-ray and HD DVD employ lasers that use blue light for reading and writing. Blue has a shorter wavelength than the red and infrared used in standard CDs and DVDs, and a blue-light laser can read and write information at a much higher density. Blu-ray has some storage and throughput advantages over HD DVD, but I never saw any side-by-side testing that indicated Blu-ray was better in other ways.

While both formats were introduced in prototype form in 2002, players didn't reach the market until 2006, with HD DVD appearing first. The HD players became associated with gaming systems: Sony included a Blu-ray player in every Playstation 3 they shipped; Microsoft offered an inexpensive HD DVD upgrade kit for its Xbox 360. Apple never signaled its interest in the higher-capacity formats, except for HD DVD burning support in DVD Studio Pro; the company sometimes moves slowly with regard to optical disc formats. After betting on the never-popular DVD-RAM technology for writing DVDs, Macs were late to market with CD burners. With the format war over, it's possible Apple will now make its move with a built-to-order option on Mac Pros; Blu-ray drives so far have been seen as too expensive, bulky, and power-intensive to be an option for most laptops.

Warner Brothers, in early 2007, showed a prototype HD DVD/Blu-ray hybrid disc that could have made the studios agnostic as to format, and LG, an electronics firm, introduced several models of Blu-ray/HD DVD players - that cost more than separately purchasing a PlayStation and an HD DVD player. But these hybrid and dual-format efforts were for naught because Sony and partners shipped enormously more Blu-ray players than the HD DVD alliance, and Blu-ray wound up with more studios on board releasing titles than its competitor.

Toshiba and other news sources report that about 1 million HD DVD systems of all kinds were sold worldwide, with roughly 300,000 in the form of Xbox 360 upgrades, and 300,000 as drives used in PCs. But Sony has shipped 10.5 million PlayStation 3 systems worldwide with Blu-ray drives since the gaming system went on the market, according to the BBC and other sources. At least another 1 to 1.5 million Blu-Ray players and drives are estimated to have sold as well.

The real market decision comes from what media consumers purchase - Sony could have sold Blu-ray players until they were, uh, blue in the face, but if consumers didn't buy movies in Blu-ray format, we'd have seen a different outcome. From the time discs were sold using both formats through November 2007, over 4 million Blu-ray titles were reportedly sold around the globe, and over 2.5 million HD DVD titles. That difference doesn't seem huge, but the worldwide numbers understate the support for Blu-ray in Europe and Japan, and the upward curve of higher Blu-ray player and disc sales in recent months.

Blu-ray was behind in the count for some time in terms of studio support, but it gradually won over most of the large studios. Universal was firmly in the HD DVD camp, Warner Brothers was developing discs for both formats, and Paramount and DreamWorks said that they'd support only HD DVD instead of both formats back in August 2007. (That last deal reportedly involved large payments to those studios to cover costs and pay for potential loss of revenue.)

Warner Brothers dropped its support of HD DVD in late 2007, which gave Blu-ray five of the seven largest movie studios, and apparently kicked the legs out from under HD DVD. Netflix then said it would support only Blu-ray rentals. And, finally, Best Buy and Walmart announced they would stop selling HD DVD movies and hardware, which nailed the lid on HD DVD's coffin. Today, on the heels of Toshiba's announcement, Universal said it would, of course, switch to Blu-ray as well. On 24-Feb-08, Microsoft confirmed it would stop selling HD DVD players for the Xbox 360.

Each standard had a variety of technical differences in its approach to interactivity (Blu-ray supports Java, HD DVD uses a Microsoft standard), security, and storage density. Blu-ray can store 25 GB on a single-layer disc, and 50 GB on a dual-layer disc; HD DVD offered just 15 GB and 30 GB for single- and dual-layer discs. Blu-ray can also pull audio and video data off a disc at an effective playback rate more than 50 percent higher than HD DVD (48 Mbps for Blu-ray versus 30 Mbps for HD DVD). Both playback rates are far higher than necessary for full 1080p content, however.

Disc burners were available for both formats, but HD DVD is now a dead end, and was never a preferred choice due to its lower capacity. Philips updated a popular model for PC systems with new firmware this month that allows burning double-layer Blu-ray discs at their full 50 GB capacity (minus overhead). Amazon offers this burner for $400. LaCie has a Mac-compatible FireWire/USB 2.0 Blu-ray drive that handles dual-layer 50 GB discs ($740), and includes Toast 7.1.1 Platinum with Blu-ray support; Toast 8 Titanium can be purchased separately with built-in Blu-ray support, too ($80 with $20 mail-in rebate). Single-layer recordable discs cost about $12 to $15 each; dual-layer recordable discs, about $35. As far as I understand it, Blu-ray discs can't be mastered with desktop burning software for video and audio playback, only for data storage.

For the average consumer, this may all come as news. The format war affected mostly early adopters, and, as the numbers show, the majority of them opted for Blu-ray.

[Correction: This article was modified after publication to note that some laptops do include Blu-ray drives, even though it's not a typical option. The article had stated that no laptops had Blu-ray as an option.]

iPod & iPhone | 19 Feb 2008 | Listen

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Three Cell Carriers Offer Unlimited Minutes for $100 per Month

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless shave off the top of their profit margins by offering $100 per month unlimited cellular calling plans, with various included and add-on unlimited text messaging and phone-based Internet and email access. Verizon led the movement, with AT&T and T-Mobile joining later in the day. Sprint Nextel is still lost at sea.Show full article

Verizon Wireless disrupted the heavy margins collected from high-usage cellular customers last week by announcing an unlimited voice usage plan for $100 per month. AT&T and T-Mobile quickly followed suit. Sprint Nextel has a $120 to $160 per month unlimited voice, data, and messaging package that's being tested in limited markets. The fine print on Verizon's offer notes that fees and line charges are on top of this rate, adding between $4 and $35 per month depending on locality and other factors.

Shifting Fees, but Maintaining Revenue -- This change in pricing has the potential to bolster revenue from some customers even as the carriers lose some of the richest plums - but they'll make those constantly talkative customers happier. Cellular plans have always been a game of chicken. Some people choose plans with a low number of minutes to keep their monthly contract rate down, but then face overage charges of as much as 45 cents per minute. Others opt for plans with no monthly fee that have rates of 15 to 25 cents per minute when paid in advance, resulting in a payment of as much as $100 for just 400 minutes of usage a month. (Of course, many people choose prepaid plans because they're wildly cheaper when few minutes are used; see Tom Schmidt's "Prepaid: Cell Phone Plans for the Rest of Us," 2007-07-23.)

This is one reason why I've been a happy AT&T customer, and Cingular before that: They include rollover minutes in most plans, and I haven't had an overage with a modest plan shared by my wife and myself since signing up. Some months we use hundreds of minutes, some over 1,000.

Customers now paying $60 to $80 per month, but who regularly exceed their monthly allotment by as few as 100 minutes, may choose to upgrade to a $100-per-month plan to budget for what they'll pay each month with no surprises.

Power callers, those who live on their cell phones, often pay exorbitant rates, over $200 per month, and sometimes still exceed the thousands of included minutes. These customers will see substantial savings, which makes them less likely to switch providers, which reduces churn, in turn reducing marketing and other expenses.

Carriers will make less absolute money from these customers on voice and other services, but may be better able to sell them upgrade packages that have relatively high margins and recapture some of the lost revenue. Verizon, for instance, might move customers from a $200 high-volume plan to a $140 per month plan that includes video and unlimited text messages; text messaging costs practically nothing per message, making most of its associated revenue pure gravy.

Industry sources have told me in the past that cellular minutes cost roughly 4 to 5 cents on a wholesale basis, but carriers have lower (and typically mostly fixed) expenses on their home networks. Costs are also lower outside of peak weekday hours. It's unclear precisely what the average monthly minutes will be for "unlimited" call plans - do people cut their landlines at last and shift tens of hours a month to their cell phone? - but it's likely to bring more revenue overall against a large set of fixed expenses in operating a network.

Plan Details by Carrier -- Verizon Wireless's basic unlimited plan includes no text messaging or data services. For $20 more per month, unlimited text messaging is included, while $40 more per month includes unlimited text messaging, video services, email, and their GPS navigation service. Data is charged at $2 per megabyte except with the highest-level plan, where data transfer is included. Family plans are also available without much of a discount until you hit three or more lines. Verizon will let customers switch without paying a change fee or renewing a contract.

AT&T launched its unlimited call plan on 22-Feb-08. The basic plan is $100 per month, while existing messaging and data plans can be added. A $5 per month add-on includes 200 text and multimedia messages, while $35 per month includes unlimited messaging and access to the network through its restricted gateways. AT&T will also allow a switch to this plan with no fee and no required contract extension.

No mention was made of any iPhone-related plans, although iPhone pricing is commensurate with other AT&T plans. The most expensive individual calling plan for the iPhone costs $220 per month for 6,000 minutes, including unlimited weekend and evening calling, and just 200 text messages, as well as unlimited EDGE data. An upgrade to unlimited text messages adds $20 more per month.

T-Mobile's unlimited service started up on 21-Feb-08 and includes unlimited text and picture messages. The carrier requires a new two-year commitment to switch to the plan, but no change fees are added.

Helio, a mobile operator that resells access to Sprint's network with its own unique handsets, also offers a $100 per month unlimited plan for voice, data, GPS services, and messaging, dropped earlier this month from $145 per month.

Sprint Nextel, the odd duck out in the announcements, made measured statements about evaluating offerings, and could hemorrhage even more subscribers. The company is in fairly dire shape as it has bungled its merger of the Sprint and Nextel networks, has invested hugely in the measured gamble that is WiMax data networking, and is far behind in a multi-billion requirement to re-outfit public safety departments across the United States as part of a spectrum swap that the U.S. government allowed to consolidate emergency frequencies and Sprint Nextel's licenses. I expect they'll have an announcement soon.

Safe Computing | 23 Feb 2008 | Listen

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FileVault Security Compromised with Compressed Air

The memory chips used in personal computers retain their data after power is removed - longer if you freeze them. This leads to a security weakness: disk encryption keys can be extracted from memory even if a computer is active, locked or sleeping.Show full article

A chilling story broke on 21-Feb-08, and please excuse the pun: Researchers from Princeton University, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and elsewhere revealed research that disk-encryption software used by and with major operating systems - including Mac OS X's FileVault - can be defeated if you have physical access to a running computer and, in the easiest example, a can of compressed air. You can download their entire research paper (PDF).

The researchers discovered that the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips used to store running programs and data while a computer is active maintain an image of their contents for seconds to minutes after power is removed. Using relatively simple techniques to cool DRAM, ranging from discharging an inverted compressed-air canister (temperatures as low as -50 degrees C) to using liquid nitrogen (-196 degrees C), maintains the data longer.

This persistence is important because while an encrypted disk image is active, the master encryption key is stored in memory. It was previously thought that this storage had few vectors of exploitation: a machine that had a targeted virus might be able to extract and transfer the key, but even that was a bit dubious with well-designed software, and no such viruses have been reported for Mac OS X or Windows Vista.

If a ne'er-do-well had physical access to a machine, you might think, that person would also have access to the disk for which the encryption keys are loaded. But if the computer is sleeping or using a secured screen saver, and if it's set to require a password to bring back to life, this research shows that keys can be extracted even when the machine is otherwise thought to be safe. A stolen computer or one that's thought to be safely locked is now vulnerable.

The researchers discuss using a USB flash drive with an operating system and forensic tools installed to reboot the computer while retaining the memory image in RAM. The booted system can then scan for and extract encryption keys. Or, if the DRAM chips are fully frozen, they can be removed from the computer and installed in another system without losing much, if any, data.

The stored keys might not be unique to one disk's encryption or one purpose, too, making the breach of one system more troublesome. Even more interesting, if the "break in" were performed well, it's possible that a victim would be unaware - they might think their computer had just crashed in their absence unless the machine were left disassembled. (One expects that the FBI was already aware of this weakness; they already know how to keep continuous power to a computer plugged into the wall by unscrewing the wall outlet and attaching a UPS via clips to the live wires.)

The solution to this problem is a requirement for two-factor methods of authentication, in which possession of the encryption key has to be coupled with another piece of information, such as a hardware encryption device that generates codes that must be entered in combination with the key to gain access (RSA SecurID SID800 Token pictured below). Those devices are typically carried by individuals, and thus without kidnapping or use of physical threat, security could be maintained. (Two-factor authentication is readily available these days: I have a fob from PayPal that I use to confirm my eBay and PayPal logins. It's free for business accounts, and $5 including shipping and handling for personal accounts.)

What does this mean for the average user? Realistically, your disk-encryption software is just as secure as it always was. It's unlikely that you're being monitored by a hostile government, organized crime cartel, or James Bond's villains, or even by more ordinary criminals who want your private data and have the technical chops to implement this security exploit. That said, one thing you can do to increase the security of your system is set your keychain password to something different from your login password. The researchers discovered that Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard keep multiple copies of the login password in memory, and most people use their login passwords to access the keychain, which in turn often stores passwords for FileVault and other secured services. See Joe Kissell's "Take Control of Passwords in Mac OS X" for details on Apple's keychain and how to separate your keychain and login passwords.

But the researchers point out that many of the systems used by financial institutions and others who maintain secure operations use disk encryption to prevent unauthorized access. Luckily, many of these institutions do require two-factor authentication, and have other physical security mechanisms in place to prevent access to computers, including locked computer cases. Those who do not should add such precautions.

The most troubling aspect of this research is that the group found unquestioned assumptions about how DRAM works and the security of disk encryption keys. With those questions now posed and answered, operating systems and other security software will have to be revised and strengthened to eliminate or at least reduce this chilly vulnerability.

Blog Post | 20 Feb 2008 | Listen

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DRM Foils iTunes Movie Rentals for Some Apple TV Owners

by Jeff Carlson

After discovering that my Apple TV wouldn't play a rented movie because of the way it's connected to a Dell LCD display, I took an unorthodox route: I contacted Apple customer support. It all worked out in the end, but beware if you're in a similar situation.Show full article

Like many Apple TV owners, I was excited to learn that the 2.0 software (or "Take 2," as Apple refers to it) would be a free upgrade for those who already own the media player. One of the first things I did on my refreshed Apple TV was test a movie rental. The process of finding a movie and renting it was simple and quick. I wasn't planning on watching it right away, so I let the movie download over my somewhat pokey Internet connection overnight.

When I sat down to watch it, however, the Apple TV wouldn't let me, due to the way I have the device set up. You see, I don't own an HDTV, which is required for the Apple TV. Sony let me borrow a 40-inch Bravia last year when I was writing my book "The Apple TV Pocket Guide," but of course I had to give that back. Since then, my Apple TV has been connected to a Dell FPW2005 20-inch LCD display (the same kind to which I connect my MacBook Pro at home and at the office). The two devices are connected by a cable that has an HDMI plug on one end (which attaches to the Apple TV) and a DVI plug on the other (connecting the Dell monitor). It's a setup that has worked well, even if it's not a fancy big-screen television.

When I attempted to watch the movie, however, the Apple TV displayed an error message: "This content requires HDCP for playback." HDCP (High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) is a form of digital rights management (DRM) that prevents you from playing video over DVI and HDMI connections (in my case) if you don't own compatible hardware that can decode the signal properly. (In other words, HDCP is more crap DRM that does nothing but irritate legitimate customers.) Although I had downloaded the movie legally, my monitor apparently was too old to include HDCP and thus wouldn't display my movie.

But this isn't a high-horse article about how the media and electronics companies are hell-bent on screwing their customers. (No, really.) Beneath the error message was a note that I could watch the movie using the Apple TV's component connection instead. I couldn't take advantage of the HDMI solution that sends video and audio down one cable, but I could output video through the three component video cables and separately attach audio to the Apple TV. Unfortunately, the Dell monitor, being primarily a computer display, didn't include component connections.

Although you can purchase a component-to-DVI adapter on the Internet for around $25, some unsolicited sleuthing by my colleague Andrew Laurence (who owns the same display) turned up a problem: this Dell model employs a DVI-D (digital) connection, but you need DVI-I (integrated) or DVI-A (analog) to use one of those adapters. Many Dell monitors after that model are compatible, but not ours. So much for that idea.

In a better world where media companies aren't clueless and paranoid (sorry, toning down the aggression - deep breaths), I'd simply transfer the movie to my MacBook Pro or iPhone. But anything you rent directly from the Apple TV can be viewed only on the Apple TV. If you rent a movie on your Mac via iTunes, that movie can be transferred between an iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV. My movie was trapped on the Apple TV, with the only way to watch it being hooking up the Apple TV to a compatible device.

I could have simply sacrificed the $4 rental fee and chalked it up as the cost of research, but $4 is also the cost of a pair of double-espressos and is therefore real money. So I did what I imagine few people do: I wrote to Apple. It took a bit of navigating, but ultimately I ended up at a form where I could contact iTunes Store support. I explained my predicament and sent the message into what I expected would be yet another corporate email black hole.

Within 24 hours, I received a reply: "I'm sorry to hear that you can't play the movie that you rented. I have reversed the charge for this rental. You will see a credit of $4.35 USD, plus any applicable taxes, in three to five business days. If store credit was used for this rental, you should see the credit after you sign out of the iTunes Store and sign back in. Please note that the iTunes Store Terms of Sale states that all rentals are final, so this is a one-time exception."

Now, the movie is on its way back to me, this time via iTunes so I can watch it later on my iPhone. I guess I won't be watching iTunes movie rentals via the Apple TV, and if your TV or display doesn't support HDCP, component video, or the appropriate flavors of DVI, you'll be avoiding it too.

Networking | 20 Feb 2008 | Listen

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Using iChat Theater for Remote Presentations

by Joe Kissell

Leopard's iChat Theater feature makes remote video presentations far easier and more flexible than before. But the experience doesn't always match up with the elegant effect of Apple's demos.Show full article